


the moonlight waltz

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Backstory, F/F, F/M, Grief, Kyoshi Warriors - Freeform, Love, Poliamory, Post War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suki's POV, The Moon - Freeform, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6789496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a half moon tonight.<br/> <br/>It hangs in the sky, a sickle-shaped candle, far away and dripping wax. A warrior dances under its light, nightdress swishing the brown grass. Her eyes are wide, teeth bared as she fights, every strike a memory. The moon watches, and loves her, and remembers.<br/> <br/>Suki has loved the moon longer than Sokka has either of them. The moon loves them both back. This is how it goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the dance

There is a full moon tonight.

An harvest moon, fat with the last of the warmth. A warrior dances under its light, fans glinting gossamer-white in the light. She dances to the moon, eyes closed, every move a prayer. The moon watches her back, and loves her, and thinks on her prayers.

 

-

Suki hated the sea as a child.

It was too big, for one. Too pretty, and she didn't trust it, even as she knew it was what separated her island from the mainland and the war. It brought them safety, a chance at neutrality. Independence, something she had cherished from a young age, and it only made her resent the ocean more. Suki hated depending on others.

She also hated waiting. It wasn't fair, that Dad spent so much time away, when Mom couldn't protect him. She missed him, missed the songs he sang, where all the warrior wore skirts and fans and fierce paint, and she missed the way they made Mom smile. She never smiled like that when he was away. She spent even longer hour with the other warriors, training and patrolling, only coming home when Suki and Grandma had gone to bed. When Dad was away, so was Mom. Suki wasn't sure who she missed the most.

It had been a clear sky the last time she saw Dad. He'd promised to sing her a new song when he came back, one he'd make on the way. She had hugged him tight, not minding the smell of fish and salt, and promised to watch out for his ship.

She doesn't break her word. She goes to the tall hill and watches for his ship, acorn-tiny in the seething waters. Another, even smaller, holds the best swimmers out of the Kyoshi Warriors, out to help them when it became clear they wouldn't be escaping on their own. Her mother, she knows, can hold her breath for longer than anyone else in the island. There is no question that she's there. The sky rages on, the sort of early winter storm that comes in and swallows the whole world away for as long as it wants.

When it goes away, it leaves the sky clear and the beach littered with drift wood and swollen bodies. Her father is among them, smelling of sea more than ever. Her mother is not. Sakura had gone underwater, followed carved bean of moonlight in the quiet depths while the waves tumbled over themselves.

Later, Suki was to be told the village had been short on fish with every sign of an early winter coming in. Her father had known that, and gone out at sea regardless. But at the time she'd been numb, shaken to the roots. Nothing had touched her, not her grandmother's voice, not the sudden sunlight in her eyes, certainly not the calm sea, glittering cold. Only her children fans, only their clink and the weight of them had felt real.

  
For the one and only time in her life, Suki ran away. To the high hill, where all the world stretched open and merciless. She trained until it was night again and the night sky was dark above her, only stars above her, the moon hung from a lower branch. Winter had come. She felt it in her young lungs, tasted it in the air. Here near the end of the world, one could never take light for granted.

They fed her father's body to the Unagi, as was costume. Suki cried, quietly, without tears. Her mother did not even shake. Suki looked carefully at her, but you couldn't hide tears in Kyoshi make up, and there were no tear tracks in her red and black and white cheeks. And though her mother had clutched her all the night before, clutching her to her chest like she was the one drowning, Suki had known then, for sure, who she missed the most.

She had hated the sea as a child, respected it as an adult, trusted it as an islander, but it was much later when she learned to love the moon.

 

-

There is a half moon tonight.

It hangs in the sky, sickle-shaped, draping luminescence like a candle, far away and dripping wax.

  
A warrior dances under its light, nightdress swishing the brown grass. Her eyes are wide, teeth bared as she fights, every strike a memory. The moon watches, and loves her, and remembers.

 

-

Suki had nearly been named for her grandmother.

Her parents had argued about it all through the pregnancy, she'd been told. In the end an earth kingdom name had won, a solid warrior name for a solid baby born fat and wailing. But Suki had still had a strong bond with her grandmother, who had never been a warrior herself, but made the best goat-sheep cheese in the island and raised her granddaughter when her daughter by marriage died in duty and her son was lost to the sea.

She had been a spiritual woman, a soft voice that had echoed when it shouldn't and eyes that saw more than they ought to see. Suki remembered her in flashes and glimpses, in the unadorned foundations of her self. She used to take her to the tallest point in the island and just stand there, turn her face upward, long white hair billowing in the breeze. She taught her granddaughter to stand too, to dance and breath with the air. That tall point was to this day Suki's favorite place to train her katas.

She takes Sokka there, after that war. It's not all that high, not for them who flew on air bisons and defeated a sky armada and plummeted from cloud height, but there's no place Suki feels more at peace. He feels the same way, she can tell; deep breaths after the steep trek, feet that don't quite touch the ground.

"This is where Avatar Kyoshi fought Chin the Conqueror, and separate her home village from the mainland. This is where legends are made." This is where I feel closer to the earth, my people, my blood, she doesn't say. It is where my grandmother landed, when her home and people were burned, drifts in the wind.

A Kyoshi Warrior shouldn't feel so close to the sky. A true leader shouldn't seek refuge in another element. But Suki has made her peace with air and earth a long time ago, before her grandmother died, and if her fans catch a little more air and her kicks have a little more swoosh to them, well. A true Kyoshi warrior knows her own strengths, and uses them to protect and defend.

Sokka hears what she doesn't say. He's out the clue together a while back, with that meat and sarcasm fueled brain. She'd caught the weight of it is his glance once, knowledge-heavy in hers. For a second only; then he'd smiled his Sokka smile and her heart had soared, flew.

He looks around now, scuffled the windswept dirt with a seal boot. Nods. "Yeah, I can feel it." He sniffs like one of the wolf-dog pups he showed her when they passed the South Pole. "Yap, definitely stinks of spiritual stuff."

She hits him with a closed fan and chuckles when he winces exaggeratedly. But they stay there a long time, understanding each other without speaking. He does make her smile, this brilliant, silly man, this brave warrior. After that they start sparring there when they can, before dawn or late in the evening. There are few things that make her heart beat like Sokka in Water Tribe furs, warrior paint smeared on his face, grinning fierce and wide over his space sword. Sometimes they both wear Kyoshi uniforms. Suki is not shy to admit that she loves it, fighting her man as he wears her skirts, and Sokka, male bravado out aside between them, enjoys it just as much.

More often than not, they end up making love under the sky. The breezes flap at their clothes when they fight and raise goose bumps on their flesh when they don't. Sokka's eyes chase away the cold. The moonlight makes his sharper and warmer, more dangerous. It would make him more distant, if it were anyone both Sokka. Instead it brings them closer together.

And if in her moments of rapture, Suki touches other, smoother skin, feels smaller hands on her, then it is exactly as it should be.

 

-

There is a new moon tonight.

It casts no lights, cloaking the world in shadow. Two warriors dance in the dark, the ringing of steel clanging louder. They stalk and swipe, retreat and come together in great flashes of warrior might, again and again. They are alone in the top of a hill overlooking the sea, yet they are not alone. Tonight the moon does not need keep watch over the world; she dances around them, along but apart, silver tresses on the corner of their eyes, a bright twirling laugh in the monsoon-heavy air.

It adds urgency to the warriors, and delight, so they dance, and the moon watches, and loves them, and dances with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://searchingforserendipity25.tumblr.com).


	2. the dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We love the same world. The only difference between us is that you sacrificed yourself for it, as I have not been called to do. Princess." 
> 
> She bows over her hand, respectfully, feeling almost clumsy in a way she isn't used to. This isn't just a meeting between foreign dignitaries building an alliance. She would be amenable to an alliance, but she's thinking of something a little more solid than that.

Sokka told her about Yue, of course. Because she asked, and because he wanted to tell her. Whatever grows between them, they both agree it must be based on honesty.

He's a good story teller, and it's a good story, objectively: the kind, beautiful princess, the brave adventurer, the unwanted betrothal, the end of the world stopped by selfless sacrifice and separated lovers. If his voice gets thick, if his eyes go far away, then, Suki holds his hands and doesnt even mind their shaking.

In turn, she shares her own love tales. Nothing so dramatic (and trust Sokka to turn his first date into a spirit tragedy of old). She speaks about Kasumi, her fellow Kyoshi Warrior, who smelled of dew and had freckles and had bled out in a beach during a confrontation with Fire Nation Soldiers; about Nobu, her first love, a smuggler her island made business with, with long thin fingers that played the flute like a master and could shoot the middle of a leaf from the other side of the meadow. She hadn't heard of him in years, knew she would never see him ever again.

Kasumi had been her dearest friend, Nobu a summer fling, but they'd been hers, until they weren't. The memories taste sour on her tongue, for all that there is plenty to be glad about. Sokka listens, griping her hand, asking about what color of Kasumi's eyes, half-bragging that he was sure to be a better sailor than Nobu. It makes her smile, makes her lean against his shoulder and think about the new peace, the way everyone was moving around to make room for others.

\--

That night, Suki dreams of Yue.

It's a strange dream. Suki, who has often dreamed of Kyoshi, and suspects that on more than one occasion it might have been the real spirit of the dead Avatar herself to visit her, has a certain familiarity with the fuzzy lines between dreamscapes and the Spirit World. She recognizes the place for what it is, the Spirit Oasis Sokka told her about, unnaturally warm in the cold ice. The pool is there, glowing eerily under the moonlight, the koi fish inside swimming around and around each other like a festival flower chain.

"Suki." Yue says, just because she seems to like the name. "Suki, brave warrior, brave leader.  I  am honored to meet you."

"And I you. "

Suki smiles. Yue's hands are princess-soft when they grip hers, and when she blushes she hides her face in her furs. But she doesn't look away. Suki likes that in people, that they don't look away. 

"We love the same man."

  
"We love the same world. The only difference between us is that you sacrificed yourself for it, as I have not been called to do. Princess." She bows over her hand, respectfully, feeling almost clumsy in a way she isn't used to, doesn't enjoy. There's anticipation curling at her strong wrists, her earth-bound, booted feet. This isn't just a meeting between foreign dignitaries building an alliance. She would be amenable to an alliance, but she's thinking of something a little more solid than that.

She's so achingly beautiful. Spirit dreams can hide much, but there's no guile in the silver of her eyes, the light coming from her, like the glow of the pool. Divine light, the moon's very presence, and Suki is awed by the spirit, but mostly she's honored by the woman-girl in front of her, the one with solid hands and a charmed smile. She didn't seem like she smiled much, and Suki was struck with the desire to unleash her fans on Zhao.

Zhao, swallowed by the sea, refusing Zuko's help even to the end. A man terrified of failure, condemned to the spirit's Justice. Suki sneaks a glimpse at the pool. She wonders what Tui thought about all this, the death of his wife, the human substituting her. He had lost as much as Yue had, in all this. She wonders if he wouldn't be inclined to do them all a kindness, and act as he always had.

Suki dreams of Yue the next after, and the one after that. Sokka joins them at one point. It's a bit confusing; she can't quite remember at what point he joined them.

  
\--  
But those aren't her only dreams.

There is Azula, mad Azula, lightening at her fingertips and brimming with a choking hatred. The Boiling Rock, too hot to exist, smothering the air in her lungs and crushing her, cooking her like a soft egg.

In the morning, she wakes up drenched in sweat. Sokka rolls to the other side of the pallet, snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Gasping, heart pounding, she almost wakes him. Sometimes she does wake him, and they lay together without speaking for a long time. 

Tonight is not so kind. Tonight she can only think of how long he took to get her out, how she had sunk so low as to count on other people to get her out. She didn't, _didn't_ , her warriors would have waited, found another chance. The ones that would have lasted so long. Suki might not have. It's not logical, not fixable. It takes time, any warrior knows, to regain confidence and trust on one self, not to mention one's companions, after painful emprisonment.

Stupid, really. But it made old panic rise in her throat, helplessness seize her limbs.

She hikes, for lack of a better thing to do. The top of the hill barely stirs with a breeze, not nearly cool enough to bring any relief. She can't bring herself to work on her katas, so she lays in the grass, peeling her eyes open in refusal to give ground to the terrors beneath her lids. She stares at the waning moon, falling behind in the sky, keeping merry company with the glittering stars.

She's still not blinking when Yue sits beside her. They don't speak. There's a warm weight to lay her head on, silvery fingers combing through her wet bangs. At one point, Suki falls asleep.

Dawn wakes her from dreams of a dark blue pond and fish that blur into each other, shining without ever casting shadows.

  
\--

The seasons pass. Sokka goes away, to the Southern Water Tribe, The Earth Kingdom, the Northern Air Temple. Suki travels, to the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, the Southern Air Temple. They make sure their paths cross, when they can. Kyoshi Island had been neutral all through the war, and then a stalwart support to Avatar Aang, which put them in prime position to help negotiate war reparation talks.

She saw a lot of Sokka then, of Aang and Zuko. She'd never thought she'd befriend the man that burned her village, just as she'd never thought she'd fall in love with a Southern chief's son or a Princess turned Moon Spirit. Life was funny like that, but mostly it was busy, with more paperwork than could possibly be useful. Bureaucracy is not a novel concept in the Kyoshi Islands, but they had nothing on Ba Sing Se's court.

Being a neutral part invoved listening to a lot of nobles trying to bullshit, bribe and blunder their way out of war crimes. Suki and her Warriors' job was to out them, make sure their crimes were shown to their fuller extent and judge them fairly. With no biases. An idealist notion, but the world was full of those these days. She couldn't say she minded terribly.

There's a Northern Tribe group passing though once, for healing services as an act of good faith. With them there's an old woman, named Yoguda, who looks over their shoulders as at Sokka and Suki standing side by side. She smiles, secretive. When they speak, later, at a balcony in the middle of another endless feast, the old healer mentions how very taken Princess Yue was with young Sokka, and weren't they mysterious, the ways of the spirits.

Suki stands tall in her armor and nods, agrees. Mysterious, like the faces of the moon. Suki holds the position an Avatar once created, out of determination to keep what was hers safe. Her grandmother had been an Air Nun, shielded by a lucky draft and long grown-out hair. People are just as mysterious as the spirits, and just as simple.

Outside, the moon rises, pale and silent.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://searchingforserendipity25.tumblr.com).


End file.
